Issue No 66 | 11 August 2000 | |
InternationalUnions Back International Seafarer DealBy ITF
Shipping union representatives from 56 countries have decided to back a pioneering international collective bargaining agreement with ship employers.
Voting in Valencia at a meeting of the Fair Practices Committee of the International Transport Workers' Federation, they agreed to accept a comprehensive package of pay and conditions hammered out earlier this month with the ship employers' organisation IMEC.
At the same meeting delegates stepped up pressure on the Chinese shipping giant COSCO over unfair cargo handling practices, when they agreed to support a new global campaign by ITF-affiliated dock workers. They also designated Bolivia and Equatorial Guinea as two new flags of convenience because of their poor port control records and the high proportions of foreign vessels in their registries.
The first ever internationally-negotiated pay agreement between unions and ship employers phases in a pay rise for seafarers to a US$1,400 benchmark by 2004, and guarantees an annual rise of US$50 to that date.It also lays down minimum standards for working conditions and contains a clause that will allow seafarers to respect industrial action by fellow workers, including dockers. For the first time seafarers worldwide will be free to choose not to cross picket lines. The terms of the agreement state that IMEC's 30-40 members - who employ some 60,000 seafarers from 43 countries will be obliged to bring to task any of their members who break the terms of the deal.
While welcoming this hard-won consensus with ship employers, ITF delegates at the meeting kept their sights on the ongoing campaign against flags of convenience and abuses against workers at sea. Voting in the two new flags of convenience they noted, for example, how Bolivia advertised its willingness to take "any vessel". In the Paris MOU area, in 1998, all three of its inspected ships were detained. In 1999, of eight ships inspected, seven were detained.
Delegates also approved the blacklisting of six new shipping companies, adopted plans to set up a cruise ship campaign office in Miami, and threw their weight behind a call from dockers' representatives to fight cargo handling practices by COSCO.
One of the biggest ship owners in the world, COSCO stands accused of instructing its seafarers to undertake dangerous loading and unloading work which would normally be done by trained dock workers. With repeated protests to COSCO meeting no response, the ITF is now calling on its 400,000 affiliated dock worker members to start a campaign specifically targeting COSCO ships. All the ITF's 120 inspectors in ports worldwide will be on the look-out for vessels owned or managed by COSCO, monitoring their operations and reporting back to the ITF Secretariat.
Other resolutions at the Valencia meeting included backing for the idea of a Seafarers' Charter guaranteeing minimum services to seafarers fromt their unions, and a pledge to continue supporting the struggle of trade unions in Fiji to restore democracy in their country.
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